The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 49
by Little PandaThe Road
The screeching of brakes.
[If the world is gentle enough, do not wake a fool who is pretending to be asleep.]
The three of them walked out of the studio together.
Tao Tianran was always busy with work. She said to Cheng Xiang, “You should see President Qiao to her car.”
Cheng Xiang really did not want to be alone with Qiao Zhiji, dreading that she might bring up their last conversation again.
But she could find no excuse to refuse, so she could only nod. “Alright.”
Tao Tianran left first in her Bentley. Cheng Xiang walked with Qiao Zhiji to her car. Holding the door open, Qiao Zhiji asked, “Do you need a ride back to the city?”
“No, thank you. The company sent a photographer today, so I’ll head back with their car,” Cheng Xiang said. “Oh, by the way, about the custom diamond ring for your partner…”
“You can coordinate with her directly on that. There’s no need to loop me in.”
Cheng Xiang paused, then nodded. “Alright.”
“I’m off, then.”
“Take care, President Qiao.”
After Qiao Zhiji’s car drove away, Cheng Xiang stood quietly in place.
Ah, people were just so conflicted. Because Qiao Zhiji said nothing, she only felt all the more guilty.
When she got home, she tossed her handbag aside and picked up her phone to search for flights to Thailand.
As she entered the search interface, she laughed at herself.
What are you posing for, Cheng Xiang? Is running off to Thailand supposed to show you actually tried? Don’t you know in your heart that this situation is completely insoluble?
There was only one body, but two souls. They couldn’t share it; it was either her or Yu Yusheng.
Either she occupied it and Yu Yusheng’s soul eventually scattered into nothingness, or she returned it to Yu Yusheng and vanished without a trace herself.
When Cheng Xiang was young, she had certainly been taught the story of Kong Rong giving up the pears1.
Nor was she a stranger to reciting noble, self-sacrificing oaths when she joined the Young Pioneers2.
She had even tried to be a Little Moral Vanguard3 just to make Director Cheng look good when she failed to qualify as a Three-Good Student4 in class.
And yet, Cheng Xiang gripped her phone, the pad of her thumb gently rubbing against the screen.
Then, unlocking it, she called Yu Yuluo.
Yu Yuluo answered with a long, petulant whine, “Hello? So you actually remembered me—”
Cheng Xiang smiled.
She asked, “It’s Saturday. You don’t have to go to school, right?”
“But I have tutoring! Did you forget?”
“What time do you finish?”
“Four o’clock. We have an in-class test today too,” Yu Yuluo said, sighing.
“Well, can you finish the test half an hour early?”
“What for?”
“I’ll take you out for ice cream.”
Yu Yuluo thought about it. “If you treat me to a double scoop of pistachio and chocolate, I can finish a whole hour early.”
Cheng Xiang’s lips curved. “Deal. I’ll pick you up this afternoon.”
Shortly after two in the afternoon, Cheng Xiang took a taxi to Yu Yuluo’s tutoring school.
At exactly three o’clock, Yu Yuluo strolled out of the school gates carrying a pink backpack.
At first, she walked at a snail’s pace, clutching her backpack straps with both hands, her face wearing the solemn, overly serious expression of a miniature adult. But when her eyes landed on Cheng Xiang, she could not hold it back anymore. A smile broke across her face, revealing a shallow dimple in her left cheek as her feet went pit-a-pat, running straight toward Cheng Xiang.
She buried herself in Cheng Xiang’s embrace, wrapping her arms around Cheng Xiang’s waist, and repeated her petulant whine: “So you actually remembered me—”
Cheng Xiang hugged her back, leaning down to lightly sniff her hair.
To help herself grow taller, Yu Yuluo chugged cartons of milk every single day, leaving her with a warm, sweet, milky scent.
Cheng Xiang realized she had called Yu Yuluo out of the blue because, deep down, she was afraid.
Whenever she pictured herself lying all alone on that zebra crossing, a bone-chilling coldness washed over her—the kind that had been carried by the winter’s first snow, seeping deep into the marrow of her bones. A human’s innate fear of death, she realized, was not a fear of pain, but a fear of the cold.
She desperately needed to hold someone warm to remind herself that she still had the privilege of being alive.
She slung an arm around Yu Yuluo’s shoulder and walked forward. “Where should we go to eat?”
“There’s a gelato shop nearby, just a short walk away.” Yu Yuluo was practically skipping now. “Can I really get a double scoop?”
“You can even get a triple.”
“Really?” Yu Yuluo eyed her suspiciously. “Are you asking me for a favor?”
“What could I possibly need from you?”
“Hard to say. I’m actually very smart, you know. For example, did you know there was an animal called the marsupial lion on Earth two million years ago? I bet you didn’t. See? I’m already smarter than you in that area…”
Yu Yuluo babbled on, taking Cheng Xiang’s hand off her shoulder to hold it as they walked.
The little girl’s hand was slightly plump and wonderfully warm.
Leaning against the glass display counter, Yu Yuluo asked, “What flavor do you want?”
“I’m not having any.”
“Ah? Why?”
“I’m afraid of the cold.”
“Cold? Where?” Yu Yuluo looked thoroughly confused. “It’s already spring. The temperature is almost twenty degrees!”
Cheng Xiang merely smiled.
Yu Yuluo sat by the window, kicking her legs back and forth, her eyes narrowing with absolute bliss as she ate her gelato. Cheng Xiang counted the patches of sunlight filtering through the window pane—one, two, three… there were four of them on Yu Yuluo’s cheek, with one landing right on the tip of her round nose.
Sitting across from her, Cheng Xiang felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to cry.
Such a beautiful scene was, in essence… something she had stolen from Yu Yusheng.
She could only console herself in her heart: Back then, Yu Yusheng was the one who actively chose to give up. If my soul hadn’t crossed into her body, this body would have been gone long ago. It’s useless for her to regret it now.
But…
Her toes lightly rubbed against the floor, and her fingertips tapped the tabletop. She called out to Yu Yuluo, who was buried in her gelato: “Look at the trees outside.”
“Hmm?” Yu Yuluo looked up, her small face covered in curiosity. “What about them?”
“They’re moving. Let’s stay quiet for a moment. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of the wind blowing through them.”
That was her jiejie, speaking to her.
In truth, Cheng Xiang was terrified that Eldest Miss Yu would get too emotional upon seeing her younger sister and push her soul out of the body again. If she suddenly fainted, it would scare Yu Yuluo to death.
But Yu Yusheng did not. Cheng Xiang peacefully accompanied Yu Yuluo until she finished her gelato, then escorted her back to the school gates.
The Yu family’s chauffeur had driven Zhuwei to pick up Yu Yuluo. Zhuwei sat in the back, her window rolled halfway down.
Cheng Xiang stood at a distance and patted Yu Yuluo’s shoulder. “Go on.”
Yu Yuluo walked over, clutching her backpack.
When Zhuwei looked over, her gaze fell on Cheng Xiang standing behind Yu Yuluo, and her expression darkened.
Cheng Xiang made no move to greet her. She simply nodded slightly, shouldered her bag, turned, and walked away.
The surrounding canopies swayed gently, filtering the light and shadow of late spring.
Cheng Xiang glanced up at the branches, wondering if Yu Yusheng had ever regretted not moving out of that house sooner. If she had only made up her mind to sever ties earlier, rather than drowning day in and day out in that suffocating atmosphere, perhaps she would not have taken that final step.
But that was easier said than done.
Cheng Xiang knew that her own effortless departure from the Yu household was only possible because she felt nothing for Yu Yusheng’s parents. A family remains a person’s deepest cage because we never stop holding out hope for them.
Back home, Cheng Xiang called Yi Yu. “You know, I’ve always thought you’re a remarkably self-consistent person.”
Yi Yu hissed, “Why do I get the feeling that doesn’t sound like a compliment?”
“I just wanted to ask how you manage to always be so shamelessly thick-skinned—ah, no, self-consistent?”
Yi Yu let out a loud “Ha!” “Are you actually asking me seriously?”
“Of course.”
“Then it’s just four words—don’t think too much.”
Cheng Xiang fell silent.
“Don’t take yourself too seriously, okay? Do you think you’re the one who caused this mess? No, no, no. Heaven is playing a massive game of chess, and you’re just a pawn under its control. Wherever the game goes, you just tell yourself: this is fate, and I’ll accept it. Don’t waste your energy wondering whether you deserve it or if you should be doing this.”
Yi Yu paused. “Do you think that makes sense?”
“It actually makes a lot of sense.”
“Does it make you want to pick up a tea kettle and pour it over your head5?”
“Stop with the terrible puns. If you want to say it was an epiphany, just say it.”
“I’m seriously considering starting a public class on Bilibili. Teach people how to stop gaslighting themselves.” Yi Yu stroked her chin on the other end of the line. “Don’t call me next time. Just go buy my course.”
“How much are you planning to charge?”
“Thirty thousand.”
Cheng Xiang hung up on her directly.
But as she sat on the edge of the sofa, hugging her knee, she felt that Yi Yu had a point.
To give up this body now would be the equivalent of dying all over again. And it would not be a sudden, passive death like last time; she would have to consciously choose to surrender her life after already experiencing that bone-chilling terror. Did she have the courage?
In that case, shouldn’t she just come to terms with it sooner: back then, Yu Yusheng was the one who actively chose to give up, Qiao Zhiji was the one who went to a foreign country, and Tao Tianran was the one who failed to love her properly.
Just as Yi Yu said, this situation was not her fault. Why should she have to play the selfless martyr?
If anyone was wronged, it was her—getting run over by a car just for going out to buy a bowl of liangpi6. Who did she ever provoke?
She thought it over, then called a local home improvement studio. “Hello, do you have carpets?”
“Yes we do, ma’am!” the person on the line answered with immense warmth. “Where would you like to install them, ma’am?”
“Wall-to-wall.”
“Then what color and pattern do you prefer, ma’am? How about you add me on WeChat, ma’am, and I’ll send you some samples to choose from? We have all kinds of styles—Rococo, Bohemian, Wabi-Sabi…”
“The style doesn’t matter. It just needs to be soft. Extremely soft.”
“…?”
Cheng Xiang simply figured that since Yu Yusheng was starting to fight for control of the body, knocking her unconscious from time to time; falling flat like that every time really hurt.
She had to make thorough preparations.
The same went for Tao Tianran. Ever since Tao Tianran said she loved her, the anger in Cheng Xiang’s heart hadn’t subsided for a single moment. She just ate the bag of Wuchang rice7 she had bought for Tao Tianran every day, mixing it with tomato scrambled eggs, mixing it with shredded pork and green peppers—she ate whatever went best with rice!
She just wanted to finish off that bag of rice as fast as possible! Who told you to buy Wuchang rice for Tao Tianran in the first place?
She was angry: Why didn’t you do this sooner? Now I’m not even Cheng Xiang anymore, yet you come and say you love Cheng Xiang. Who are you putting on that heartbroken act for?
Anyway, she wasn’t going to look!
Once she thought it through, she had been sad for Tao Tianran in the past, and now Tao Tianran was sad for her; neither owed the other anything.
She tallied up her savings. She had not touched any of Yu Yusheng’s original funds. Using only the salary and design commissions she had earned since crossing over, she wired a portion to Director Ma and Deputy Director Cheng every month. She had not spent much of what remained, after all, she was used to being poor.
The money she had saved would be enough to cover a year’s tuition to study jewelry design in Europe. Living expenses were out of the question, but that was fine—she could just work part-time. She could manage whatever Qiao Zhiji had mentioned before, whether it was washing dishes or doing traditional Chinese massage.
Afterward, she would stay there and find a job as a designer and work hard.
Eat lots of paella. See lots of exhibitions. Travel to lots of countries. Look at lots of seas.
She would live a very, very good life on Yu Yusheng’s behalf.
Would that… be alright?
She opened her browser to search, resolving to leave the country as soon as she finished the diamond ring design for Qiao Zhiji’s partner.
An institution in Italy fit Yu Yusheng’s design style very well. Yu Yusheng’s resume was beautiful, and Cheng Xiang was afraid that her own lack of experience would make her write the resume poorly. After thinking about it, she spent some money to contact a study-abroad agency.
The agent took one look at her resume and said, “Don’t worry, Miss Yu. Your application is guaranteed to get in.”
Cheng Xiang exhaled, her chest still feeling heavy.
In late spring, Beicheng would be filled with drifting, tiny willow catkins. Cheng Xiang had always been allergic to them, so she used to spend this season wearing a plain, white medical mask—the stylish “influencer” masks had never worked on her, which was bizarre.
Fortunately, Yu Yusheng’s body was not allergic, so Cheng Xiang did not have to wear a mask when she went out. The bus rattled and swayed, and the sunlight spilling through the half-open window warmed her hair. Catkins drifted inside, while willow trees hung low along the roadside outside.
After getting off the bus, Cheng Xiang realized she had come to her family’s siheyuan8.
Standing at the entrance of the alley, she looked up at the gray tiles and square bricks, noticing a small blue street sign with a white border that read: “Hundred Flowers Alley.” Just then, Director Ma and Deputy Director Cheng walked out for a stroll. They froze upon seeing her standing there.
So Cheng Xiang said, “I came to say goodbye.”
Director Ma paused, then gave a heavy nod. “It’s good that you’re going. Otherwise, every time we see you, we feel awful inside too.”
Deputy Director Cheng asked, “Where are you going?”
“To study in Italy.”
“Good, good,” Deputy Director Cheng nodded. “Going somewhere so far away… that’s wonderful.”
Cheng Xiang did not know what was so good about it.
She was a girl who had grown up in the alleys; to put it bluntly, she had no high aspirations. Her sky was just the square of blue framed by the courtyard walls, with the neighbor grandpa’s pigeons carrying pigeon whistles as they flew past. She had no ambitions, and had never thought about going to far-off places, content to watch the thatch on the roofs grow year after year as winter turned to spring, eventually reaching the sky.
Only after falling in love with Tao Tianran did she suddenly ask Director Ma one day, “Mom, do you think Gangdao is far?”
“Oh!” Director Ma’s eyebrows had shot up. “That place is ridiculously far.”
But in the end, she had not gone to Gangdao with Tao Tianran.
And now, she was going to a place even further than Gangdao, all by herself.
She lightly picked at her fingertips with her nails, desperately wishing she could step forward, cling to Director Ma’s arm, and say, “Actually, I don’t want to go.”
But she restrained herself, remaining rooted to the spot as she nodded. “Yes, going somewhere so far away is quite nice.”
Besides saving money, her preparations for going abroad involved learning the language.
Cheng Xiang had initially thought about buying Lao Gan Ma chili crisp and Wujiang pickled mustard tubers, which she heard were absolute essentials for Chinese students abroad. After all, she was moving to a small Italian town, and she had no idea if the local Asian supermarket would stock them. But when she checked the expiration dates, she realized they were too short, so she would have to wait until just before her departure.
So, she would practice the language first.
Her English was barely passable, but why on earth did Italian have so many rolled r’s?!
Cheng Xiang called Yi Yu again. “When you went to Italy…”
“What about it?”
“Did you speak Italian?”
“I did!”
Cheng Xiang recalled Yi Yu’s dramatic screeching of “Non! Non truffles!”, bursting into a sudden fit of laughter. Yet even after laughing, her chest remained tight, devoid of any relief.
“A mix of Chinese and Italian?”
“Don’t worry about how I did it. Anyway, I could speak it.”
“But how do you actually practice those rolled r’s?” Cheng Xiang sighed. “It’s just too hard.”
“Let me tell you, you need to train the flexibility and strength of the tip of your tongue.”
“How do I do that?”
“Are you perhaps familiar with Planet Cup9?”
Pah! Why does that sound so dirty?
During this time, Cheng Xiang saw Tao Tianran a few times.
They met at the company to discuss the custom design for Qiao Zhiji’s partner.
Yi Yu was sometimes there and sometimes not. Regardless of her presence, Cheng Xiang sat in the conference room with her head down, staring only at her own design proposals without casting a single glance at Tao Tianran.
Tao Tianran sat beside her. Whenever she occasionally raised her hand, she brought out a brief rustling sound from the friction of her shirt fabric.
Cheng Xiang thought: She’s gotten thinner.
She had no idea why, but just hearing that rustling of the shirt, those three words surfaced clearly in her heart.
She did not speak to Tao Tianran. She hurriedly left the company as soon as the meetings ended. Tao Tianran, meanwhile, would return to her office to continue her work.
On the day of the final design approval, Yi Yu made an appearance to hold a video conference with Qiao Zhiji’s partner. The client looked over the final draft and was highly satisfied.
Hanging up, Yi Yu clapped her hands. “Come on, let’s go. Dinner is on me. Teacher Tao, don’t drive tonight. You absolutely must have a couple of drinks with us.”
Cheng Xiang thought: I forgot that the current Tao Tianran is no longer the Tao Tianran of the past. The current Tao Tianran doesn’t need to be coaxed to drink.
And so, the three of them went downstairs. Inside the elevator, Yi Yu smacked her forehead, remembering she had forgotten a small gift she bought for Cheng Xiang.
Cheng Xiang said, “Forget it.”
Yi Yu replied, “No way.”
She told them to wait while she went back upstairs to fetch it.
Cheng Xiang and Tao Tianran stood outside the Kunpu office building. The sky was darkening into twilight, painted with the scattered glow of neon lights. Behind them, the sign of the milk tea shop Cheng Xiang used to frequent cast a faint, shimmering light.
Cheng Xiang stood just behind Tao Tianran’s right shoulder, stealing a glance at Tao Tianran’s profile.
Whenever she lacked the courage to look at Tao Tianran directly, she would always do this—stealing a quiet glance at her profile, ready to pull her eyes away at a second’s notice.
For example, the day she proposed the breakup and Tao Tianran left dragging her suitcase.
For example, right now.
Tao Tianran gazed out at the road swarming with traffic, where the passing cars wove red and white light ribbons. She lowered her head and pulled out her phone to type. After staring at the screen for a long time, she suddenly spoke: “Are you leaving?”
She asked so abruptly that Cheng Xiang was startled. “Ah? Yeah.”
Tao Tianran locked her phone and looked up.
Cheng Xiang suddenly thought: Who is she always texting on her phone?
It couldn’t be to the former Cheng Xiang… right?
As Tao Tianran looked at her, preparing to speak, Cheng Xiang suddenly felt a wave of fear in her heart.
At this point, what was there left to say?
What else could be said?
And so, she beat her to it: “The weather is quite nice today.”
The light in Tao Tianran’s eyes dimmed, as if she understood her evasion. She gave a slight nod. “Yes.”
Cheng Xiang fell silent, staring at Tao Tianran’s thin profile.
If the two of them were never to meet again, their dialogue would be forever frozen at—
-“The weather is quite nice today.”
-“Yes.”
When Cheng Xiang spoke again, the two words she said were: “Goodbye.”
Tao Tianran gazed at her.
Cheng Xiang offered a small smile. “The Big Boss will be down in a minute. She’s so loud and dramatic that I probably won’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to you.”
Tao Tianran’s ink-black pupils held the light of the neon. Neon was a very cunning thing, best at using its own lively bustle to highlight a person’s loneliness.
How would a poet write about farewell?
Cheng Xiang searched her memory for the poetry she had learned growing up. A poet would write, ‘A few notes on the wind flute from the parting pavilion at dusk; you head toward Xiaoxiang, I toward Qin.’10
Or perhaps, ‘Back then I lightly parted from my beloved; now across mountains and rivers, where are you?’11
Cheng Xiang was not that poetic. When she lay on the snow-covered zebra crossing, she had missed, resented, loved, and hated Tao Tianran. But now, since she had miraculously been given another chance, she simply wanted to say a proper goodbye to her.
No complex rhetoric. Just the simple two words, “Goodbye.”
Goodbye, Tao Tianran.
Yi Yu’s loud, boisterous voice, accompanied by the rhythmic clicking of her high heels, rang out from behind them: “Shianne! Look what I want to give you!”
At the moment Cheng Xiang wanted to look back, she heard a sharp scream from the side of the road.
Cheng Xiang whipped her head around, only to feel a shadow rush past her side, bringing a gust of wind.
She stood frozen in place, catching the sound of Yi Yu—who was still strutting toward them in her heels—uttering a sharp curse: “Holy shit!”
A chaotic chorus of honking horns. The screeching of brakes. The neon lights wobbled, casting down onto the silver-gray road.
The center of the road was instantly gridlocked with a crowd. Yi Yu hurried past Cheng Xiang, slapping her on the shoulder. “What are you standing there dazed for?”
Only then did Cheng Xiang seem to snap back to reality, following Yi Yu.
Yi Yu had run over in a hurry, but her footsteps were dull and heavy.
In the middle of the street, surrounded by cars and a growing crowd, Tao Tianran was sitting on the ground, cradling a little girl in her arms. She had dashed forward so quickly that her black hair fell in messy tangles over her shoulders, yet her expression remained remarkably calm.
A car had almost struck the little girl who had suddenly darted into the road; it was Tao Tianran who had pulled her away with a sudden yank.
The girl’s mother, a nearby office worker, was already screaming at the driver: “How on earth are you driving?!”
“I should be asking how you look after your kid! Letting her run out into the street like that! It’s pitch black—if I hit her, it’s just my bad luck!”
“Hey, what kind of attitude is that?!”
The little girl called out from Tao Tianran’s arms, “Mommy.”
No one answered her.
The little girl finally burst into tears.
The woman snatched the girl into her own arms, and Tao Tianran’s hugging arms fell down, empty.
“The traffic police are here!”
Yi Yu’s lips moved. She really wanted to say, What’s wrong with you, Mother? Someone saved your daughter, the least you could do is say thank you. But in the current situation, no one seemed to care about that. So she only helped Tao Tianran up and asked, “Are you alright?”
Tao Tianran shook her head.
The police dispersed the onlookers, directed the traffic back to normal, and then took the driver, the mother and daughter, and Tao Tianran to the station to take their statements.
Yi Yu grabbed Cheng Xiang. “Come on, let’s go accompany Teacher Tao.”
Yi Yu even went out of her way to ask the officer on Tao Tianran’s behalf, “Is there some kind of 「Good Samaritan」 award? The kind that comes with a cash prize?”
The officer replied, “No.”
“Well, I have one! Thirty thousand!” Yi Yu patted her chest. “Teacher Tao, you’ve got serious guts. You usually seem so cold, I never would have guessed. Truly, you can know a person’s face, but not their heart12… wait, that doesn’t sound like a compliment, does it…”
Once their statements were done, the three of them walked out of the police station.
A morning glory vine climbed a low, white-painted wall. It had just rained the day before, and the corner of the wall was illuminated by a tin streetlamp, with a tiny snail crawling slowly along.
Tao Tianran lowered her eyes to look at it.
That was when Cheng Xiang suddenly snapped, “Are you out of your mind?”
Yi Yu immediately nudged Cheng Xiang’s arm. She had actually been incredibly tense all evening—everyone knew what would have happened if that car hadn’t stopped in time. When Yi Yu got nervous, she babbled, which was why she had kept badgering the police about citizen awards. But Cheng Xiang was different; she had been silent the entire night.
Why was she so aggressive the moment she spoke?
Tao Tianran turned her head and looked at Cheng Xiang. Her thin wrist hung at her side, scraped from somewhere, with a long, raw abrasion showing from her shirt sleeve.
The light under the tin lampshade illuminated Cheng Xiang’s face. Those gorgeous features, which usually carried a casual, lazy, charming smile, had absolutely no expression on them now. “Are you trying to show how capable you are? Trying to show how kind you are? Trying to make it look like you’re the only good person in the whole world?”
“Everyone on the side of the road saw that little girl run to the middle of the street, but you’re the only one who had to rush forward, right?”
Cheng Xiang felt herself shaking extremely violently.
She knew her words were quite cruel. Who wouldn’t want to save the little girl? She did too. But she also remembered when she was hit and knocked down by the car—it wasn’t pain, but a coldness. That coldness wasn’t even because of the falling first snow, but a kind of fading life, a chill seeping into the marrow of her bones.
Cheng Xiang realized she was so angry because she had clearly felt this loss of vitality in Tao Tianran.
She heard her own voice slice through the air, sharp and biting: “Don’t tell me you’re not afraid of death.”
Tao Tianran’s lips parted slightly. “I am.”
“And you actually know fear!” Cheng Xiang retorted.
“I am afraid,” Tao Tianran said. “And I’ve never thought of myself as any kind of good person either.”
Yi Yu nudged Cheng Xiang again, likely afraid the two of them were going to tear into each other. Cheng Xiang did not want to say another word. She strode over to the roadside to hail a cab.
Behind her, she heard Yi Yu reassure Tao Tianran, “Teacher Tao, don’t mind her. Shianne was just worried about you.”
Tao Tianran did not reply.
Indeed, she had never considered herself some kind of good person who surpassed normal moral standards.
She just thought: If only, on the day of the first snow, when that out-of-control truck barreled toward Cheng Xiang, someone could have pulled my Xiao Xiang back.
How could she not be afraid of death?
As she had sat slumped in the middle of the road amidst the shouting, she had slowly looked around. The neon lights flashed brilliantly, casting a lively glow over the bustling city. But precisely because the city was so lively, there was not a single apple tree here.
Without an apple tree, how was her Xiao Xiang supposed to find her?
They had clearly agreed: Meet under the apple tree.
Footnotes
- Kǒng Róng ràng lí (孔融让梨), a famous historical anecdote from the Han dynasty where a four-year-old boy, Kong Rong, chose the smallest pears to leave the larger ones for his older siblings, serving as a classic lesson in selflessness.
- Shàoxiānduì (少先队), a mass youth organization for children aged six to fourteen in China, run by the Communist Youth League.
- Dàodé xiǎo biāobīng (道德小标兵), a school-level title awarded to children who demonstrate exemplary moral behavior and civic responsibility.
- Sānhǎo xuéshēng (三好学生), a nationwide honor for students who excel in three areas: study, physical health, and moral character.
- Tíhú guàndǐng (醍醐灌顶), literally 'to pour ghee over one's head,' is a Chengyu meaning to be filled with wisdom or experience a sudden, clearing epiphany. Yi Yu makes a pun here by taking the homophone tíhú (tea-kettle) literally.
- Liángpí (凉皮), literally 'cold skin noodles,' is a traditional cold noodle dish from Shaanxi, China, made from wheat or rice flour starch.
- Wǔcháng dàmǐ (五常大米), a premium, aromatic variety of short-grain rice cultivated in Wuchang, Heilongjiang province, highly regarded for its sweet flavor and chewy texture.
- Sìhéyuàn (四合院) is a traditional Chinese courtyard residence, consisting of a yard surrounded by buildings on all four sides.
- Xīngqiúbēi (星球杯), literally 'Planet Cup,' is a popular Chinese snack packaged in small plastic cups, containing tiny, round biscuits drenched in layers of white and dark chocolate, usually eaten with a tiny plastic spoon.
- Shù shēng fēngdí lí tíng wǎn, jūn xiàng Xiāoxiāng wǒ xiàng Qín (数声风笛离亭晚，君向潇湘我向秦), a line from Tang dynasty poet Xu Hun's 'Parting at Xianyang Pavilion,' describing friends parting ways to travel in opposite directions.
- Dāngshí qīng bié yìzhōngrén, shān cháng shuǐ yuǎn zhī hé chù (当时轻别意中人，山长水远知何处), a line by Qing dynasty poet Nalan Xingde, reflecting on how easily one parts with a lover, only to later wonder where they are across vast mountains and rivers.
- Zhī rén zhī miàn bù zhī xīn (知人知面不知心), literally 'you may know a person's face, but you do not know their heart.' Typically used to caution that a seemingly good person might harbor bad intentions, Yi Yu humorously misapplies it to mean Tao Tianran has a warm heart hidden beneath a cold exterior.
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